REVIEW: ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ Is An Imperfectly Wild Ride

Scammers are an enduring obsession in streaming television. WeCrashed, Inventing Anna, and The Dropout are successful examples of a phenomenon that Apple Cider Vinegar (2025) evolves by taking this fascination into the field of pseudoscience. Based on influencer Belle Gibson, who lied about a brain cancer diagnosis to build her following, the Netflix series is, if anything, a highly binge-able piece of scandalous entertainment.

Directed with noticeable verve and featuring a bravura performance from Kaitlyn Dever, Apple Cider Vinegar is one wild ride of television worth getting on, even if its reach ultimately exceeds its grasp. In it, Australian influencer Belle Gibson (Kaitlyn Dever) has a stranglehold on her audience.

With her story of overcoming her brain cancer through clean eating, she’s now on her way to reaching heights she never could have imagined. Here’s the thing: from the beginning, she’s faked all of it. As she tries to milk her following for all she’s got, her story parallels that of a rival influencer who actually has cancer, Milla Blake (Alycia Debnam-Carey), her skeptical manager Chanelle (Aisha Dee), and a fan who also has cancer (Tilda Cobham-Hervey).

Kaitlyn Dever has never shown range like this. Outside of the flawless Australian accent work, her turn as Belle Gibson is an immaculate construction. Initially, she’s likable, with a smiling, personable face that makes the people around her feel warm just by her very presence. The more time we spend with her, the more her intoxicating personality starts to crack. A habit of compulsive lying gives way to a more sinister exploitation of all around her. Underneath it all, there’s a deeply sad need to be loved. All of these elements make Dever’s turn as Belle extremely watchable.

Kaitlyn Dever rightfully steals the spotlight in Apple Cider Vinegar.

Whether one pities or detests Belle, there’s a reaction and a compulsion to keep watching. Her freewheeling, manipulative ways extend to the direction of Apple Cider Vinegar. Opening on a flashy dance number set to “Toxic” by Britney Spears that shoots us right into the success of Belle Gibson, as well as introducing the main cast and giving flashes of her downfall, director Jeffrey Walker makes a pop spectacle out of the influencer’s world.

Walker and creator/primary writer Samantha Strauss (Nine Perfect Strangers) are at their best whenever they allow the structure of the series to take the form of Belle controlling the narrative. At certain points, whenever the show inches closer to certain traumas in Belle’s past, she herself prevents the story from divulging that information. At the start of each of the series’ six episodes, a character looks into the camera to inform the audience that a significant amount of the story has been altered. This creates an interesting effect, where there’s always the possibility that what the audience witnesses could be fabricated to a certain degree, just like Belle’s whole story.

Apple Cider Vinegar (2025) is at its best whenever Belle is the focus. Her gradual loss of any sort of good-hearted intention makes for riveting television all the way through. Particularly painful to watch is how she treats her inner circle, her relationship with partner Clive (Ashley Zukerman), a microcosm of her true nature towards other human beings. Samantha Strauss makes the smart choice to parallel Belle’s journey with Milla Blake’s. Milla’s actual journey with cancer represents a harrowing tonal change that espouses the danger of following pseudo-scientific methods to counter serious illness.

Despite its fun, wild energy, too many unsatisfactory plots weaken the show.

That being said, Milla’s story represents perhaps too much of a detour from the main plot line. It hardly bogs down the show due to its own compelling nature, representing a harsh reality, but it almost feels like it could’ve made for a compelling drama all on its own.

At least it’s connected to the main plot in some way, with Chanelle as a shared acquaintance between Belle and Milla. The same cannot be said for the storyline of Belle’s fan, Lucy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), whose story is so far removed from Belle’s narrative and so underdeveloped that it feels almost inconsequential to the entire show.

Although it’s tethered to a true story, Apple Cider Vinegar affords itself a lot of leeway that it doesn’t properly take advantage of in the finale. None of the plot lines come to a satisfactory resolution, with the series ending extremely abruptly and giving more attention to the Lucy and Chanelle B-plots than Belle’s own. It’s a disappointing deflation for a series that grabs attention for most of its run. The very final moment of Apple Cider Vinegar, however, is so wickedly fourth-wall breaking that it almost makes up for the finale’s shortcomings.

All in all, Apple Cider Vinegar (2025) is a fun, hot mess. The Netflix miniseries has some notable stumbles, namely a tonal shift with representing actual cancer, too many storylines to juggle, and a deflating ending. Kaitlyn Dever’s performance, the structure, and poppy direction outweigh the negatives, making Apple Cider Vinegar another great entry into the scammer subgenre.

Apple Cider Vinegar (2025) is now streaming exclusively on Netflix.